Much like one-time bedfellow Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover are busy developing a new range of four-cylinder turbocharged petrol and diesel engines for their next-generation models. Dubbed Ingenium, the engines will all be built in a new state-of-the-art facility in Wolverhampton in the UK.
Although we haven't yet been given specific details such as power outputs and CO2 emissions, a few details are being drip-fed to keep us interested.
First up will be a new 2.0-litre turbodiesel unit, called AJ200D, which is claimed to come with a 17 per cent reduction in the friction of its moving parts, compared to Jag's current four-pot diesel, which should help reduce its consumption and emissions. Better yet, Jaguar Land Rover is claiming as much as an 80kg drop in weight compared to its current four-cylinder units depending on the engine spec.
"Ingenium fulfils our commitment to offer our global customers some of the most advanced powertrains available in some of the lightest vehicles in the premium SUV and performance car segments," said Ron Lee, Jaguar Land Rover Director of Powertrain Engineering.
"Being configurable and flexible are the two key strands of Ingenium's DNA because we have future-proofed our new engines from the outset. Ingenium will be able to accept new advances in fuel, turbocharging, emissions, performance and electrification technologies when they are ready and accessible to be deployed.
"We were able to design Ingenium in this way because we had the rare opportunity to start the project with a clean sheet of paper. We weren't locked into any of the usual restrictions that force engineering compromises because we had no existing production machinery that would dictate design parameters, no carryover engine architectures to utilise and no existing factory to modify," said Lee.
In order to keep the development costs under control, both the petrol and diesel engines have been designed to share as many components as possible. All the designs are supposed to be fully flexible and can be configured into larger or smaller capacities than the core 2.0-litre setup. They'll also be native to front-, rear- or four-wheel drive and have electric assistance and hybridisation designed in from the outset.
The engines will also feature a number of fuel-saving design elements such as roller bearings on cam and balancer shafts, instead of machined-in bearing surfaces; computer-controlled variable oil pumps that save energy by delivering the optimum amount of oil at all speeds, engine loads and temperatures; and computer-controlled variable water pumps that adjust the amount of coolant flowing through the engine, based on temperature, speed and driving conditions. The split or twin circuit cooling system offers the twin benefits of lowering CO2 emissions by enabling fast warm ups, and providing quick cabin heat on cold days, simplified cam drive system designed for modular application, crankshafts that are offset from the centre of the block and electronically controlled piston cooling jets to improve efficiency in the oil pumping circuit. Jets are switched off when piston cooling is not needed. They also enable the engine to reach its optimum operating temperature faster, further helping to reduce CO2emissions.
All Ingenium engines will be equipped with advanced and efficient turbochargers, central direct high-pressure fuel injection, variable valve timing and start-stop technology.
Ingenium will also come to market as one of the most tested and proven Jaguar Land Rover engines ever according to the manufacturer. Before the first Ingenium engine is sold, it will have already undergone the equivalent of more than eight years of the toughest, most punishing testing that Jaguar Land Rover engineers could devise. These tests include a huge range of integrity and durability testing, including more than 72,000 hours of dyno testing and 3.2 million kilometres of real-world testing.
"Customers around the world are increasingly demanding cleaner-running, more efficient vehicles that maintain or even enhance the performance attributes expected of a rugged all-terrain vehicle or a high performance car. Our Ingenium engines deliver this to a new level," said Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart, Jaguar Land Rover Group Engineering Director. "Engineering and manufacturing our own engines improves our ability to react to changes in demand and improves our ability to react to changes in legislation and competitive technologies in the future," added Dr Ziebart. "We believe that with the range of technologies we are investing in, Jaguar Land Rover can absolutely satisfy the often conflicting requirements of delivering engaging high-performance luxury vehicles that reduce our carbon footprint in the long-term."